Abstract

A study of ancient and modern Near Eastern religious canons
reveals the mutation, selection, and vertical transmission of fitness-enhancing
textual units, defined as theistic memes. The earliest recorded theistic
memes dealt with human fear of death and defined man's earliest relationship
to god. Theistic memes that could theoretically affect fitness through
selection and incorporation into religious canons included those dictating
beliefs about (a) self-awareness in an unknown world, (b) strategies and
behaviors toward others and within the nuclear family, and (c) appropriate
sexual behaviors within marriage. Prohibition of aberrant sexual practices
such as incest, adultery, homosexuality, bestiality, castration, and religious
prostitution would have further maximized fitness. A remarkable mutation
of the ancient Near Eastern theistic meme of child sacrifice is documented
in the Old Testament in the story of Abraham and Isaac. Vertically transmitted
theistic memes in the Hebrew canon were largely incorporated into Christian
and Muslim religious canons (New Testament and Qur'an). Mutations of theistic
memes during vertical transmission into these other canons allowed the
same fitness-enhancing stability for the gentile and Arabic populations
and are notable for the different strategies used to produce homogenized,
orthodox canons.

Keywords: Religious canon, fitness, meme, mutation

1 Introduction

Dawkins (1976) coined the term meme (from
the Greek mimeme, meaning "imitation") to describe a unit of cultural
transmission. A meme serves as a memory device that can be propagated from
person to person and from generation to generation in the form of spoken
or written words or by example. Memes include ideas, knowledge, and concepts.
Blackmore (1999) has further defined the meme
as having properties that convey memory, can randomly vary, and are subject
to selection. Heylighen (1998) has outlined
the selection criteria necessary for memes to be successfully propagated
from generation to generation. In the first step of meme propagation, assimilation,
the meme must be assimilated and accepted by a host through infection (exposure)
and must be somewhat plausible. In the next step, retention, the
meme must be retained by the host through memory. With this step meme selection
occurs. Without memory, a meme is extinguished and cannot proceed to the
next step, expression, when infection of another host may occur.
Retention of a meme depends on the perceived usefulness, interest, and
relevance to the host. The last step is transmission, the physical
means by which the meme can be conveyed to the next potential host. Transmission
may occur through physical gestures (hand or facial movements), speech,
the spoken or written word, or pictures.

Memes that convey dictated social behavior can be categorized as either
secular or theistic. According to Dawkins (1976),
the god meme concept "provides a superficially plausible answer
to deep and troubling questions about existence." Blackmore (1999)
recognizes that religions contain memes that regulate certain behaviors,
including sexual practices and some cooperative behaviors, and can modify
aggression. Operationally, in most religious canons the god meme consists
of a number of explicit pronouncements and commandments purportedly attributed
to a god. In this study, these specific attributes and dictated behaviors
are called theistic memes.

The word canon is derived from the Greek kanon, meaning "reed"
or "cane,"a device used by the ancients to ensure correct measurements
in masonry. The term came to signify an act of setting standards, and by
the fourth century implied a list of orthodox texts (Mellor
1972). Although the term was first used to describe the Christian literature,
canonization can be documented in the earliest traditions of religious
texts. A process in which those exercising authority in a population select
and exclude material in written texts, thus developing a non-contradictory
religious canon with coherent theistic memes, has occurred since the time
of the ancient Babylonians. In general, theistic meme selection is attenuated
over time as the text hardens into inviolable canon. Here, religious
canon is defined as consisting of theistic memes faithfully transcribed
from generation to generation. In the genesis of a canon or orthodox literature,
after an initial period of competing theistic memes one group eventually
prevails over others. Theistic memes may mutate as accidental or
intentional alterations. Accidental alterations include misspellings, deletions,
or repetitions. Ehrman (1993) has categorized intentional
alterations as harmonization of the text with parallel passages, elimination
of grammatical errors, or the smoothing out of ambiguities. However, in
some instances the author of the alterations has the sole intention of
creating text to render a canon more orthodox and does this by importing
biased memes or by modifying or eliminating memes with contrary or competing
views.

2 First Evidence of Memes

Schmandt-Besserat (1986) described the
first definitive evidence of the creation of tangible objects, or tokens,
as memetic devices designed to convey ideas among fellow humans. Tokens
were used widely throughout the Near East from 8000 bce onward. During
this era of nascent agrarian cultures, societies required means of keeping
records and indicating weights and measures to deal with the realities
of increased food stores. Tokens were made from fired clay in simple geometric
shapes -spheres, discs, cylinders -and used as mnemonic devices representing
units of tangible goods. These tokens are the first evidence of tangible
memes created to convey messages over distance and time.

Around 4000 bce, more sophisticated memes were developed as complex
tokens, clay figures with inscriptions indicating some abstract idea.
Complex tokens originated at about the same time and location as Sumerian
writings in the form of cuneiform text, some of which have survived
to this day. The oldest writing identified to date (around 3500 bce) is
on a small limestone tablet excavated from the ancient city of Kish (Finegan
1979). Pictographs of a human head, hand, and foot and a threshing
sledge appear on both sides of the tablets. The message inscribed is as
yet undecipherable. One of the first deciphered texts on a Sumerian writing
tablet describes a hero named Enmerkar who ruled the city Uruk and lamented
for a world of the past in which there was no fear (Kramer
1972a, 1972b).

In those days there was no snake, there was no scorpion,
there was no hyena,There was no lion, there was no wild dog, no wolf,There was no fear, no terror,Man had no rival.

This, one of the oldest recorded memes discovered to date, expresses the
human belief in an imagined past when man was without anxiety, without
fear, and without enemies who would do him harm. These Sumerian memes,
preserved in clay, were meant to be read by others and were likely understood
by many succeeding generations.

3 First Theistic Memes in Religious Canons

3.1 Epic of Gilgamesh

The earliest theistic memes to pass from generation to generation over
a large territorial area are those found in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Tigay (1982) found the origins of the story in third
millennium Sumeria; it was propagated to the old Babylonian empire (2000
bce), the Hittite and Hurrian empires in the Middle Babylonian period (1400
bce), and the Assyrian empire (700 bce). This epic in its basic form, passed
as a written document on clay tablets, was most probably read to the illiterates
of the population, who then passed on the story in some oral tradition.
Because the story was committed to a written form and was copied faithfully
by learned scribes, the epic has been preserved for thousands of years.
The
Epic of Gilgamesh is a remarkable collection of theistic memes
vertically transmitted over the centuries as a story of human fear of death
and how humans should cope with death anxiety.

Gilgamesh, after the death of his best friend, Enkidu, finds himself
crying "bitterly like unto a wailing woman."For seven days and nights he
weeps over his friend, not permitting his burial. Grief stricken, he becomes
obsessed with the fear of death: "When I die, shall I not be like unto
Enkidu?"He eventually decides that he wants to find immortality and sets
out to discover the dwelling place of Utnapishtim, the survivor of the
Great Flood, who will be able to tell him how to achieve eternal life.

At the edge of the sea, Gilgamesh receives advice about his quest from
Siduri, the divine barmaid.

The life you pursue you shall not find,When the gods created mankind.Death for mankind they set aside.Life in their own hands remaining,As for you, Gilgamesh, let your belly be full,Make merry day and night.Of each day make a feast of rejoicing,Day and night dance and play! Let your garments be sparkling fresh,Your head be washed; bathe in water,Pay heed to a little one that holds your hand.Let a spouse delight in your bosom,For this is the task of a woman.

Gilgamesh eventually finds Utnapishtim, who recounts in detail the Great
Flood, his survival, and the subsequent gift of immortality. Utnapishtim
reveals the secret of the gods: at the bottom of the sea is a plant that
gives eternal life. Gilgamesh departs in a boat, dives to the bottom of
the sea, and retrieves the plant. But a serpent rises up from the water,
smells the fragrance of the plant, and eats it. Gilgamesh weeps bitterly,
but he realizes that nothing can be done to obtain immortality.

The Gilgamesh epic is a collection of ancient Near Eastern written theistic
memes that expressly deal with questions about the fear of death and the
afterlife. The instructions of the barmaid are a set of memes defining
social strategies by which man is supposed to live his life. These memes
are explicit: "The life you pursue you shall not find, / When the gods
created mankind. / Death for mankind they set aside . . . / Pay heed to
a little one that holds your hand. / Let a spouse delight in your bosom."

Oral traditions are believed to have preceded the written memes of the
Epic
of Gilgamesh. Tigay (1982) has documented the
canonization of the Epic by comparing surviving clay tablets from different
locales and chronological eras (Table 1). Gilgamesh,
the Sumerian king, is believed to have lived around 2700 bce. Historical
evidence suggests that Gilgamesh rebuilt a shrine to the god Enil at Nippur
and constructed a wall at Uruk. The earliest texts concerning Gilgamesh
date to 2100-2000 bce, and these were likely based on oral memes transmitted
from the time of his reign. The original Sumerian tales included six non-interrelated
compositions describing the true Sumerian hero king, Gilgamesh (Kramer
1972a, 1972b). The composition and meter of
the tales suggest that they may have served as hymnic doxologies used in
temples as part of hero worship of an ancient king. At this time Gilgamesh
was considered part god. Although each tale had separate plots, three of
the tales concerned Gilgamesh's fear of death and his wish to find eternal
life.

Passage

Change from

Change to

Meme mutation type

Gilg. P. i, 7/GE 1,v,28

Descended upon me

Keeps descending

Synonyms or words functioning similarly

/GE II, ii, 40

The populace gathered around him

The populace jostles toward him

Gilg. P. vi, 14/GE II,ii,47

He did not allow Gilgamesh to enter

He
does not allow Gilgamesh to be
brought in

Different grammatical and lexical
forms of the same word

Gilg. P. ii, 12/GE I, iv, 35

Wild
creatures (fem)

Wild creatures (masc)

Gilg. P. ii, 16/ GE I, iv, 37

To the pure temple, abode of Anu

To the pure temple, abod of Anu and Ishtar

Added words or phrases

Gilg. P, i, 15, 37/GE I, v, 39; vi, 16

The mother of Gilgamesh, knowing all

The mother of Gilgamesh is wise, knowing,
she knows all

Gilg. P. I, 10/GE I, v, 31-34

Uruk-land was gathered about it

Uruk-land stands about [it] [The land is
gathered] around it, [The popula] ce [jostles] t[oward it], [The men ma]ss
against it

Expansion by parallelism

(Gilg. P. ii, 14-18)/(GEI,iv,36-37)

Come let me lead you to Broad-marted Uruk, to
the pure temple, the abode of Anu, Enkidu, arise, let me direct you to
Eanna, the abode of Anu

Come, let me direct you to Uruk (of?)
the sheepfold, to the pure temple, the abode of Anu and Ishtar

Telescoping of parallel lines

Gilg. Mi, iii, 9/GE X, ii, 16-17

Show (me) the path […]

[Now], barmaid, what is the road to Utnapish[tim]?[What
is] its [l]andmark!

Reformulation with new idea added

Gilg. P. i, II/GE I, v, 35

The men Kiss his feet

[Like a ba]by, an [in]fant, they kiss
his feet

Gilg. Y.iv, 2/GE II, v, 2, 5; cf. GEH rev. vi,
12

Seven terrifying haloes

a terror to people…

Reformulation with meaning changed
completely

Gil. P.Y.vi, 15-16/GE II, ii, 48

They grappled with each other, like champions
(lit. victors)they bent the knee

They grappled with each other in the gate
of the marital chamber

C, I, from Gilg. P. ii, 16, 18 and GE 1, iv
37, 44

“Abode of Anu and Ishtar”

“Abode of Anu”

Change due to Religious Ideology: The deliberate
omission of Ishtar in the Old Babylonian version is related to an antipathy
toward Ishtar/Inanna’s unfavorable portrayal reflected in the Bull and
Heaven episode.

Table 1: Theistic Memetic Mutations in the Gilgamesh Epic
from Old Babylonian to Late Version (Adapted from Tigay
1982)

The transformation of the Sumerian tales into a religious canon began
in the Old Babylonian period (2000-1600 bce). The broad memetic story line
of the Sumerian tales was creatively adapted into an integrated and well-meshed
text with a definitive message. The central theistic memetic message was
Gilgamesh's anguish over the death of a friend, his own fear of death,
and his search for immortality. The proto-theistic memes of the Sumerian
tales were mutated. Enkidu changes from a servant to a friend, thereby
increasing the emotional impact of his death on Gilgamesh. Added to the
story were the all-important theistic memes of ancient Sumerian wisdom
sayings, admonishing Gilgamesh to concentrate on his present earthly life,
with a woman and children, and not to worry about immortality.

The Old Babylonian Epic of Gilgamesh spread throughout the ancient
Near East in the Late and Middle Babylonian period. The canon was found
in the original Akkadian and translated into Hittite and Hurrian, at which
point the text was subjected to contemporary editing. These textual mutations
were mostly in the form of unintentional scribal errors. However, some
of the redaction included grammatical and lexical changes, addition of
new words or phrases, or expansion of some ideas by parallelism. Some changes
in the text included the addition of new ideas and some reflected changing
religious ideology (Table 1). These mutations were
incorporated into the text, which thereafter became standardized canon.
The theistic memetic message of the Epic was probably relevant to
populations throughout the ancient Near East, as it was widely distributed
and considerable effort was put into preserving the text by meticulously
copying it onto tablets.

The story of the Great Flood has ancient roots. Many early texts referred
to the event(s) (Table 2), and the actual flood most
likely occurred in the early third millennium. Two prominent early accounts
were the Sumerian
Deluge and the Akkadian Atrahasis Epic.
Neither was incorporated into the Old Babylonian version. However, The
Atrahasis
Epic continued to be transcribed as independent canon until late in
the first millennium (around 1250 bce), when it was incorporated nearly
verbatim into the Epic of Gilgamesh, greatly expanding the Utnapishtim
flood story.

Gilgamesh
Epic

Old
Testament

Author

Enlil,
the Sumeria god of Babylonia.

God

Reason

In
(Tablet XI:14) the heart of the great gods prompted them to bring a deluge

In
(Gen. 6:1-13) The earth was corrupt before God and was filled with violence
because of man, for all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth.

Hero

The
Summerian account calls him Ziusudra meaning "he who laid hold on life
of distant days." Other versions call him Atrahasis meaning "the exceedingly
wise."

Noah
meaning "rest.". (Gen. 6:9).

Announcement

Ea
appears to the Utnapishtim telling him to abandon his possessions and to
build a ship with certain specifications and take into it every seed of
life. (Tablet XI:19-31). This revelation was made contrary to Enlil's plan
and without his knowledge. (Tablet XI:173).

In(Gen7:1),
God communicates with Noah. “Go into the ark, you and your whole family,
because I have found you

righteous
in this generation.”

Period
of Grace.

There
was no thought of granting mankind an opportunity to repent. According
to Atrahasis Epic man was granted several periods of grace before Enlil
determined to destroy humankind by means of a flood.

Gen.
6:3, Man was granted period of grace one hundred and twenty years.

Utnapishtim
loaded aboard all he had of "the seed of all living creatures," " the game
of the field, the beasts of the field, all the craftsmen," (Tablet XI:
80-85 and 94-95).

Gen.
6:19-21: " of every living thing, of all flesh, thou shalt bring two of
every into the ark to keep them alive with thee; they shall bea male and
a female. Of the birds......" " And Noah, with his sons, his wife, and
the wives of his sons, went into the ark, because of the waters of the
flood."

Flood
Begins

Tablets
silent on this point.

"In
the sixth hundredth year of Noah's life , in the second month, on the seventeenth
day of the month, on that very day all the fountains of the great deep
(tehom) were broken open, and the windows of the heavens were opened" (Gen.
7:11).

Cause

The
destructive forces listed in the Summerian tablet are amuru, meaning "rainstorm,"
rain flood," or "cloudburst," and mighty winds. These two elements accompanied
by thunder and lightning are mentioned in the Gilgamesh Epic.

Torrential
rains from the heaven and the eruption of the subterranean waters. (7:11-12).

Duration

Rained
in the evening followed by a storm that lasted for six days and six nights.

For
forty days and forty nights it rained upon the earth. (Gen 7:11)

Storm
magnitude

"As
soon as the first shimmer of the morning beamed forth, a black cloud came
up from out the horizon."

"
The waters increased and lifted the ark, so that it rose above the earth.....the
waters grew exceedingly strong upon the earth; and all the mountains under
the whole heaven were covered."

Ark
Landing

Mount
Nisir, " mount of Salvation."

"
on one of the mountains of Ararat."

Bird
Scene

Utnapishtim
released a dove for testing the subsidence of the water on the seventh
day after the landing at Mount Nisir.

Forty
days after the tops of the mountains had become visible, Noah opened the
window of the ark and sent forth a raven. (Genesis 8:5-7). Having waited
seven more days, Noah released another dove, which did not come back until
toward evening. (8:10-11) After another seven days, Noahsent out a third
dove , but she never returned (8:12) Also this was a good sign; It showed
that the lowlands as well as the mountains were free of water

Exit
from the Ark

"sent
forth to the four winds"

God
said to Noah, "Go forth of the ark , thou and thy wife, thy sons and the
wives of thy sons with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing that
is with thee.....and be fruitful and multiply on the earth" (8:16-17)

Sacrifice

Utnapishtim
prostrated himself before the sun-god and offered up an Ox and an abundant
sacrifice of sheep.

Noah
built an alter unto the Lordand offered burnt-offerings "of every clean
beast and of every clean fowl" (8:20).

Divine
Blessings

Removal
from the ken of mortal man

Man
may not be slain in impunity either by man or by beast (Gen. 9:1-7)

Table 2: Theistic
Memes of Flood Story in the Gilgamesh Epic and Old Testament (Adapted from
Heidel
1963)

3.2 Enuma elish

The Gilgamesh memes did not deal with questions about how gods and humans
were created. These were recorded in a second set of written theistic memes
found throughout the ancient Near East, called the Enuma elish (When
above) myth. The memes incorporated in this myth likely date to the rise
of the first Babylonian dynasty (1894-1595 bce) when the god Marduk was
legitimized, especially under the reign of Hammurabi (1792-1750 bce), the
most powerful of the Babylonian kings.

The creation story opens with a description of a time when there was
nothing but the divine spirits , the parental gods, Apsu and Tiamat, and
their son, Mummu. Each represents cosmic matter, different forms of water
(fresh water, salt water, and clouds) that mingled together and from which
light emanated and the universe was made. After several generations of
gods, the great wise god, Marduk, is born; he becomes supreme by slaying
the evil gods and creating man. This complicated story raised as many questions
as it answered. However, as a memetic device it provided "an answer"to
questions about creation that endured for centuries. Ultimately, the myth
became logically untenable and was abandoned, but the basic memetic structure
survives to this day in the Old Testament.

A superficial comparison of the Hebrew Genesis and the Babylonian Enuma
elish might suggest the two stories are different in style, complexity,
logic, and maturity. However, Heidel (1942) demonstrated
that when the internal memetic structures (story lines) are outlined, they
prove to be identical (Table 3). The memetic influences of the Enuma
elish were also found to have influenced the Canaanite population,
with the creation of Baal paralleling the genesis of Marduk. This parallelism
is also evident in the stories that deal with the struggles of Tiamat and
the struggles of Yahweh in slaying the primordial evil monsters. These
two texts are likely memetic homologues.

When thou shalt smite Lotan, the fleeing serpent, And shalt
put an end to the tortuous serpent, Shalyat of the seven heads.

(Ras Sharma Tablets)

On that day the Lord will punish with His sword, which is
hard and great and strong, Leviathan, the fleeing serpent, and Leviathan,
the tortuous serpent, And He will slay the crocodile that is in the sea.

(Isa. 27:1)

And theistic memes as hymns of praise for Baal were most likely
memetically mutated in form and context to become Psalms for the Hebrew
God, Yahweh.

3.3 Law Codes

The third widely distributed written tradition of memes passed from generation
to generation in ancient Near Eastern cultures consisted of sets of law
codes. Some codes date to the Sumerian period, the laws of Ur-Nammu (2112-2095
bce). Not all the Ur-Nammu law codes were preserved, and the number and
subject and the punishments decreed by the king cannot be known.

The law code memes were presented as divinely inspired and were preceded
by a prologue establishing the authority of the king and his relationship
to the gods. Thus the laws had a basis and a credibility in the population
as enforced by the gods. These are therefore theistic memes. An epilogue
details punishments for those who chose to disobey or deface the inscribed
codes. In the code of Hammurabi, the chief god, Enlil, proclaims

When lofty Anum, king of the Anunnaki, and Enlil, lord of
heaven and earth, the determiner of the destinies of the land, determined
for Marduk, the first-born of Enki, the Enlil functions over all mankind,
made him great among the Igigi, called Babylon by its exalted name, made
it supreme in the world, established for him in its midst an enduring kingship,
whose foundations are as firm as heaven and earth--at that time Anum and
Enil named me to promote the welfare of the people, me Hammurabi, the devout,
god-fearing prince, to cause justice to prevail in the land, to destroy
the wicked and the evil, that the strong might not oppress the weak, to
rise like the sun over the black-headed people and to light up the land.

The memetic law codes of Eshnunna and Hammurabi were directly incorporated
into the Covenant codes of the Torah (Mellor
1972, Patrick 1985). Mellor (1972)
has noted some thirty-five to fifty Covenant memetic codes that are directly
related to the Hammurabi memetic codes. Finkelstein (1981)
has provided convincing evidence of direct meme transfer from Near Eastern
codes to the Hebrew laws dealing with the issue of the goring ox. Early
agricultural populations depended on oxen for heavy labor. The ox, although
useful for many tasks, was also unpredictable and capable of inflicting
injury by goring its owner or others. The people of the ancient Near East
understood that some oxen were prone to goring innocent bystanders and
that the owners of these oxen should be aware of this and should take appropriate
protective measures. Owners who did not do so were guilty of "culpable
negligence," a concept that ancient Near Eastern populations thought worthy
of setting into theistic memetic laws to be passed from generation to generation.
These laws are notably found in three codes, the Eshnunna, the Hammurabi,
and the Covenant.

Oxen memetic laws of Eshnunna, 1850 bce:

If an ox has gored another ox and caused its death, the
owners of the oxen shall divide between them the sale value of the living
ox and the carcass of the dead ox.

If an ox was a habitual gorer, the local authorities having so duly
notified its owner, yet he did not keep his ox in check and it then gored
a man and caused his death, the owner of the ox shall pay two thirds of
a mina of silver to the survivors of the victim.

If it gored a slave and caused his death, he shall pay fifteen shekels
of silver.

Oxen memetic laws of Hammurabi, 1792-1750 bce:

If an ox, while walking along the street, gored a person
and caused his death, no claims will be allowed in that case.

But if someone's ox was a habitual gorer, the local authority having
notified him that it was a habitual gorer, yet he did not have its horns
screened nor kept his under control, and that ox then gored a free-born
man to death, he must pay one-half mina of silver.

If the victim was someone's slave, he shall pay one-third mina of
silver to the slave's owner.

Oxen memetic laws in Covenant code (Exod. 21:28-32), 1200-1000 bce:

If an ox gores a man or a woman to death, the ox shall be
stoned to death, its flesh may not be eaten, but the owner of the ox is
innocent.

But if the ox was previously reputed to have had the propensity to
gore, its owner having been so warned, yet he did not keep it under control,
so that it then killed a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned to death,
and its owner shall be put to death as well. Should a ransom be imposed
upon him, however, he shall pay as the redemption for his life as much
as is assessed upon him.

If the ox gore a slave or slavewoman, he must pay thirty shekels
of silver to his owner, but the ox shall be stoned to death.

If an ox belonging to one man gores to death the ox of his fellow,
they shall sell the live ox and divide the proceeds, and they shall divide
the dead one as well.

But if the ox was previously reputed to have had the propensity to
gore, and its owner had not kept it under control, he shall make good ox
for ox, but will keep the dead one for himself.

The interrelationships among these texts are unmistakable. Given the identical
memetic expressions and situations, it is highly likely that the laws of
Eshnunna and Hammurabi were directly related to or drew upon the same prototypical
material. The Hebrew writers likewise undoubtedly knew of the culpable
negligence meme and the written Mesopotamian memetic codes, those concerning
oxen in particular, when mutating these laws to craft the Covenant code.

4 Theistic Memetic Creation of the Hebrew Canon

Table 4: Old Testament Selection of Ancient
Near Eastern Memes

A number of theistic memes taken from Mesopotamian canon and other traditions
were selected and incorporated into the Hebrew canon, the Pentateuch (Table
4). The advice of the Siduri to Gilgamesh found in Tablet X of the
Old Babylonian version is incorporated into Ecclesiastes 9:7-11 as:

Go then eat your bread in happiness and drink your wine
with a cheerful heart; for God has already approved your works.

Let your clothes be white all the time, and let not oil be lacking
on your head.

Enjoy life with the woman whom you love all the days of your fleeting
life which He has given to you under the sun; for this is your reward in
life and in your toil in which you have labored under the sun.

Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might; for there
is no activity or planning or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol where you are
going.

I again saw under the sun that the race is not to the swift and the
battle is not to the warriors, and neither is bread to the wise nor wealth
to the discerning nor favor to men of ability; for time and chance overtake
them all.

(Segal in press)

Hamblin (1987) has described what
may be the oldest memetic story, Adam in the Garden of Eden (probably of
pre-Sumerian in origin), as representing man's transition from hunter-gather
to agriculturist some 7000 years ago. The terms Adam and Eden
have been found in cuneiform texts from early Sumerian times and even the
earlier Ubedian period. Eden means fertile plain; Adam means
settlement on the plain. God's banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden
of Eden has been proposed to represent humans' choice of a life of husbandry
and agriculture over their earlier, God-ordained life as hunter-gatherers,
thus going against "God's will." The "original sin" may in fact have been
the choice to grow our own food. The serpent that presents the gift of
knowledge is no doubt a memetic mutation of the sea serpent that steals
the immortality-giving plant in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Also taken
from the Epic of Gilgamesh (previously the Atrahasis epic) is the
theistic meme of the flood story; importantly, Noah becomes the memetic
figure Utnapishtim. Heidel (1970) has shown the
remarkable and unmistakable parallels between these two stories, including
the characters, the ark, and the sequence of events (Table
2). Another likely theistic meme taken from the Epic of Gilgamesh
and incorporated into the Genesis canon is the concept of a man's life
companion. The author of the Epic chose a man, Enkidu, for Gilgamesh's
companion. The author of the Hebrew Genesis mutated this memetic concept
such that a woman becomes a man's life companion.

Of great importance to the Torah is the story of Moses. His early life
in the Egyptian court is recounted in detail in Exodus. However, the story
of a foundling who is rejected, exposed to danger, and found and nurtured
and then grows to adulthood to achieve greatness was a literary meme first
used to describe the early life of Sargon of Akkad (2371-2316 bce) (Table
4). Sargon was one of the first great conquerors of history. As Finegan
(1979) recounts the legend, Sargon's mother puts
him in a basket made of rushes and floats it down a river. The boy is pulled
out of the water by a woman named Akki, who raises him in the court of
the king Ur-Zababa. Sargon breaks away and establishes his own kingship,
eventually capturing and uniting the Sumerian and Akkadian kingdoms. Childs
(1965) has pointed out that Sargon of Akkad initiated
the foundling child legal principles, articulated in the earliest of the
ancient Near Eastern law codes and later incorporated into the Old Testament.
These principles included statements of (a) the individual involved, (b)
length of time designated by the contract, (c) condition of work, (d) specifications
about nourishment, (e) fines for breach of contract, (f) amount of wages,
and (g) witnesses. The narrative of the Moses foundling story incorporates
these ancient Near Eastern legal memes (except for the breach of contract
clause) in this order.

Then said his sister to Pharaoh's daughter, Shall I go and
call to thee a nurse of the Hebrew women, that she may nurse the child
for thee? And Pharaoh's daughter said unto her, take this child away and
nurse it for me, and I will give thee wages. And the woman took the child
and nursed it. And the child grew, and she brought him unto Pharaoh's daughter,
and he became her son.

(Exod. 2:7-10)

The Hebrew writers were not unlike the ancient Near Eastern
authors of the Epic of Gilgamesh, who understood that a text could
be revised and reinterpreted to edify and reconcile new historical and
theological events. The Hebrews' examination and probing of these new events
to find relevant precedence was called midrash. Midrash was employed
in the development of new text as a creative inspiration based on a knowledge
of previous texts and traditions (Goulder 1974).
Midrashic activity was rationalized by the Hebrew belief that one passage
could be used to illuminate another, whether a simple or a complex passage.
Deuteronomy is essentially a midrash of the Covenant code; Chronicles is
a midrash of Kings. Thus in essence, midrash was the process of theistic
memetic mutation that allowed a successful meme to be varied and incorporated
into new text. If a new text was accepted as canon, the incorporated, mutated
theistic memes could (and frequently did) affect reproductive fitness.
Thus the Hebrew literature is an interwoven fabric of theistic memetic
historical facts, traditions, beliefs, and rituals. These texts were often
related to others by midrash, or the incorporation of theistic memetic
mutations.

The overriding Hebrew theistic meme was that all humans are created
in God's image and thus all are created equal (Dimont
1962, Johnson 1988). This theistic meme was
distinct and unique in ancient Near Eastern traditions because of its emphasis
on human life and the rights of individual believers -a concept that contrasted
with other contemporary cultures in which property rights and the rights
of royalty were paramount. In the goring oxen memes of the Hebrews, the
emphasis on punishment conveyed the importance of human life, whereas in
the analogous Babylonian culpable negligence memes the emphasis was on
property rights.

The fully developed Jewish text of laws, the Torah or Pentateuch, in
its complete form consists of 613 theistic memes, faithfully preserved
to this day (Encyclopaedia Judaica 1971).
These theistic memes accrued over a number of centuries to cover a vast
array of codes of conduct defining behavior and beliefs. The codes were
interpreted literally, without a well-defined belief in the afterlife,
until the first century bce, when several sects developed alternative memes
about how the law could be reinterpreted.

Jewish religious canon evolved in three distinct phases, the Covenant
code (1200-1000 bce), as discussed above, the Deuteronomic code (700-621
bce), and the Holiness code (587-450 bce). The Deuteronomic code was likely
developed in the century before its fabled discovery in the Jerusalem temple
during Josiah's reign (621 bce). The Deuteronomic laws were intended to
further restate and redefine Hebrew monotheism and to rid the religion
of foreign influences by actively repudiating the customs and practices
of the Canaanites and the Egyptians. The Canaanite civilization was eventually
subjugated, with the land and people incorporated into the Hebrew state.
Some of the religious practices of the Canaanites were incorporated into
the religious beliefs of the Hebrews, such as worship of the Canaanite
gods and the practice of child sacrifice. The Deuteronomic code amply documents
later Hebrew writers'attempts to repudiate these Canaanite cultic practices
related to child sacrifice, fertility, and religious prostitution.

You shall not behave thus toward the Lord your God, for
every abominable act which the Lord hates they [the Canaanites] have done
for their gods; for they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire
to their gods.

(Deut. 12:31)

When you enter the land which the Lord your God gives you
[Canaan], you shall not learn to imitate the detestable things of those
nations. There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or
his daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who practices
witchcraft or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer.

(Deut. 18:9-10)

Child sacrifice must have markedly reduced the fitness of
the Canaanites. This behavior was clearly "imitated" by the Hebrews and
would have markedly reduced their fitness as well.

They [the Israelites] did not destroy the peoples, as the
Lord commanded them, but they mingled with the nations and learned their
practices, and served their idols, which became a snare to them. They even
sacrificed their sons and their daughters to the demons, and shed innocent
blood, the blood of their sons and their daughters, Whom they sacrificed
to the idols of Canaan.

(Ps. 106:34-37)

The Hebrew practice was later seen as an "abomination" in the eyes
of God: "They [Israelites] built the high places of Baal that are in the
valley of Ben-hinnom to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through
the fire to Molech"(Jer. 32:35). King Josiah destroyed this child sacrificial
alter, called a Topheth: "[King Josiah] also defiled Topheth, which is
in the valley of the son of Hinnom, that no man might pass his son or his
daughter through the fire for Molech"(2 Kings 23:10). And Jeremiah (7:30-32)
records,

For the sons of Judah have done that which is evil in my
sight declares the lord, they have set their detestable things in the house
which is called by My name to defile it. They have built the high places
of Topeth, which is in the valley of the son of Hinnom, to burn their sons
and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, and it did not
come into My mind. Therefore, behold, days are coming, declares the Lord,
when it will no more be called Topeth, or the valley of the son of Hinnom,
but the valley of the Slaughter; for they will bury in Topeth because there
is no other place.

Ultimately, Jewish fitness was enhanced by the absolute prohibition against
child sacrifice. No religious practice, except suicide and prohibition
against heterosexual sex, could limit fitness more. Human child sacrifice
must be a non-genetically driven behavior, a practice dictated by religious
mandate. Development of a genetically driven human behavior that would
waste such an extraordinary amount of parental investment is improbable.
The practice probably evolved as a phenomenon of self-awareness that imagined
a vengeful god who would unleash the most horrible of unknowns if not appeased
with the ultimate sacrifice -one's own child. The meaning of the story
of Abraham and Isaac has baffled many. How could any father be so willing
to sacrifice his own son, even if asked by God? However, in the times of
the ancient Near Eastern Canaanites and Israelites, sacrifice of a child
was the only way to truly gain favor and to spare the wrath of God. As
Maccoby (1982) concludes,

Perhaps the most interesting story [about human sacrifice],
however, is the story of Abraham and Isaac, for here we find not complete
transformation, made from an anti human-sacrificial stand-point, but a
phase transition, in which the yearning for human sacrifice is still struggling
with the desire to abolish it. The purpose of the story is to show that
God Himself ordained that animal sacrifice should be substituted for human
sacrifice. At the same time, the story contains no moral revulsion from
the very idea of human sacrifice. On the contrary, it is imputed to Abraham
as extraordinary merit that he was willing to sacrifice his favourite son,
Isaac, at the behest of God. We see here the dynamics of the historic move
from human to animal sacrifice: on the one hand, this is a revolutionary
step, by which a higher morality is brought into effect; on the other,
the benefits of human sacrifice cannot be lightly relinquished, and the
transition from human to animal sacrifice must appear plausible in the
sense that animal sacrifice must acquire the same aura of reverence and
holiness that previously belonged to human sacrifice.

In effect, the story of Abraham and Isaac represents a transition of the
Hebrews to a more fit religious population through the memetic mutation
of their religious canon to exclude the fitness-reducing practice of child
sacrifice.

After the Babylonian exile, the Hebrew canon was further infused with
fitness-enhancing memes that came to be known as the Holiness code.
The overall effect of the Holiness code was to make the Hebrew population
more a religious community than a nation-state. Although many of the theistic
memes were related to ritual and sacrifice, a substantial number were direct
and explicit sexual prohibitions. Many Canaanite sexual practices (incest,
bestiality, and prostitution) were detrimental to maintaining the nuclear
family and most likely contributed to the population's decline in fitness.
In contrast, the Holiness code prohibited incest, with the most inclusive
set of theistic memes to counter consanguinity. Laws also prohibited adultery,
homosexual sex, and bestiality. These Jewish theistic memetic laws greatly
enhanced fitness and were enforced by the most explicit (attributed to
God) theistic memetic punishments.

Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in
all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: And the
land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and
the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. That the land spew not you
out also, when ye defile it, as it spewed out the nations that were before
you. For whosoever shall commit any of these abominations, even the souls
that commit them shall be cut off from among their people. Therefore shall
ye keep mine ordinance, that ye commit not any one of these abominable
customs, which were committed before you, and that ye defile not yourselves
therein: I am the Lord your God.

(Lev. 18:24, 25, 28-30)

Here, human behaviors are dictated not by genes but by mental
constructs backed up by another mental construct, the fear of God.

At the core of the fitness-enhancing Jewish canon are other unique theistic
memes that allowed all individuals of the religious population to exercise
and to be governed by the same behavioral memes. Collectively, the newly
constituted theistic memes, as the Laws of Israel, facilitated the
reproductive success of the entire population. Jewish theistic memes provided
more credible answers than did other Near Eastern genesis stories to self-awareness
questions such as: Where did I come from? Who is God? What happens when
I die? When my family dies? Is there life after death? On this platform
of increased credibility were established other theistic memes that facilitated
reproductive success. Decreasing conflict among individuals was chief among
the effects of these memes. The Hebrew God commanded, "Thou shalt not hate
thy brother in thine heart: thou shalt not in any wise rebuke thy neighbor,
and not suffer sin upon him. Thou shalt not avenge, nor bear any grudge
against the children of thy people, but thou shalt love thy neighbor as
thyself. I am the Lord" (Lev. 17,18). The overall strategy had clearly
shifted to cooperation for the whole population. Other theistic memes stabilized
the nuclear family through strict laws on obedience to and respect for
one's parents and the maintenance of the family through strict observance
of religious ritual. Other remarkable theistic memes in the Jewish canon
promoted the reproductive success and fitness of the population. The Law
states that Jewish men and woman should marry and that as husband and wife
they should have children.

5 Theistic Memetic Mutation in Creation of the Christian Canon

The Sadducees were an authoritarian group of Jewish priests and
the well-to-do who proposed that all Law was to be written and that a strict
and literal adherence to the Law was necessary to be holy and to be a Jew.
The Law was not to be changed; it was fixed for all time. Because the Torah
contained few specific memes regarding an afterlife, the Sadducees ignored
the subject. In contrast, the Pharisees embraced the idea of an
apocalypse and an afterlife, as recounted by Isaiah, and the concept that
those who had fulfilled the Law and were denied compensation in this earthly
life would be compensated in the next. The Pharisees proposed that if a
person could not fulfill the Law literally because of penury or physical
circumstances, then executing the spirit of the Law was sufficient. The
Essenes
were an ascetic sect on the fringes of Jewish society. They believed in
resurrection, immortality of the soul, and a messiah who would lead the
way to immortal salvation. The wicked would be punished in hell and the
good would live with God in heaven. The Essenes developed elaborate purification
rites, including baptism, in which new members were admitted into a "New
Covenant"with the remission of sins. The messiah, the "Teacher of Righteousness,"preached
penitence, poverty, and love of one's neighbors. In this Jewish Essene
church, the essential rite was the sacred meal. The Essenes believed in
celibacy, yet permitted marriage. Most new members were adopted from other
sects and indoctrinated in the faith.

A fourth Jewish sect was the Christians (Johnson
1988). Jesus of Nazareth, baptized by John the Baptist, an Essene,
radically changed the interpretation of the Law: no longer were the historical
context and roots of the Law important. Fulfillment of the Law, in fact,
was comparable only to good works -just a precondition for eternal salvation.
Salvation itself depended on faith and belief in Jesus as the Son of God,
the fulfillment of the prophecy of the Jewish messiah.

The theistic memes concerning Jesus Christ were that (a) he was the
Jewish messiah, (b) he was crucified, and (c) he rose from the dead. The
initial community that embraced Jesus as the new Messiah was Jewish and
based in Jerusalem. Distinguishing the growth of this church from other
Jewish sects were memes that would be spread by a few gentile believers
in Antioch. In a momentous decision by the ruling council of Jewish Christians
in Jerusalem, gentiles were accepted into the faith without having to fulfill
the initiation requirements to become a Jew (Acts 15; all references to
the New Testament are to the Revised Standard Version.). Thus the uncircumcised
gentile and the observant Jew were equal members in this new religion.
Because the religion was so appealing to pagans in the Hellenized world
and to the diasporic Jews, many became converts. Soon the vast majority
of Christians were gentiles and, when the Jerusalem temple was destroyed
by the Romans in 70 ce, all formal links to Judaism were severed. However,
the Christian church was always to retain the central theistic meme, the
belief in the God of Israel.

The Christians kept the theistic memes associated with the Hebrew God,
Yahweh, as creator of the universe, earth, and humanity. In Matthew 5:17-20,
Christ teaches his disciples:

Think not that I have come to abolish the law, or the prophets:
I am not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. For truly, I say unto
you, untill heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass
from the law until all is accomplished. Whoever then relaxes one of the
least of theses commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least
in the kingdom of heaven, For I tell you, unless your righteous exceeds
that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of
heaven.

Also retained were the theistic memes detailing Israelite history and the
interpretations of this history by the Israelite God. These included the
history of Moses and the giving of the Law and the history of the prophets
and the kings. From the large amount of Jewish memetic law, the Christians
appropriated the memes related to human equality and equal justice; theistic
memes restricting holiness to those who could provide the elaborate, sacrificial
rituals were selectively minimized. In Matthew 23:23 Christ expounds, "Woe
to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth
of your spice-minth, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the important
matters of the law - justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced
the latter, without neglecting the former."

Thus the theistic memes to be embraced and acted upon in order to achieve
holiness were reduced in number, simplified, and in effect made available
to any individual. The Christian theistic memes included behavior commandments
attributed to Jesus (You must love your fellow human as yourself) and to
his proselytizers. The Lord's prayer is a central Christian theistic meme,
which appeals to the Jewish God, our Father, with adoration; the will of
God is accepted, with a request for the basic necessities of life and a
plea for forgiveness and the promise to forgive. Many Christian religions
were to evolve from the initial followers of Christ in Jerusalem. The Church
of Rome, the Byzantine or Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Protestant Church
are some of the major Christian populations that adopted mutant theistic
memes dealing with differences in beliefs, rituals, and behaviors.

Spong (1996) has catalogued the same process
of theistic memetic mutation (midrash) in the development of Christian
canon. The Gospel writers, in attempting to legitimize the new Jewish messiah,
used the midrashic technique to ground Christ firmly in the prophecies
and traditions of the Scriptures, or Old Testament. Many examples are evident
(Table 5). Christian midrash also included the alteration
of existing Gospel texts by later Gospel authors to harmonize and further
legitimize Christ. The earliest written Synoptic Gospel was that of Mark.
In writing of the parentage of Jesus, Mark does not mention an earthly
father, referring to Jesus thus: "Is not this the carpenter, the son of
Mary" (Mark 6:3). The lack of any reference to a father in any part of
this Gospel would have opened Jesus to charges of being born a bastard.
For Jews who considered Jesus the messiah this would have been a major
obstacle: "A bastard shall not enter into the congregation of the Lord"
(Deut. 23:2). The modifications or mutations made by Matthew when he copied
Mark's text are obvious and transparent. When Matthew incorporated Mark's
text on the parentage of Jesus, the text is transformed from "Is not this
the carpenter, the son of Mary" into "Is not this the carpenter's son,
whose Mother is called Mary" (Matt. 13:55). Thus, in this remarkable mutation
of a theistic meme, Joseph is created as Jesus' father.

Midrashic description of the crucifixion based on Psalm 22. Nearly
every element of the Psalm is used to depict the crucifixion seen. Here
the cry, "My God, my God, why has thou forsaken me has been lifted word
for word from the Psalm.

Psalm 22 :7-8

‘All who see me mock at me, they make mouths at me, they wag their
heads;

"He committed his cause to the LORD; let him deliver him, let him rescue

him, for he delights in him!"’

Mark 15: 29

Matt. 27 :43

‘And those who passed by derided him, wagging their heads, and
saying,

"Aha! You who would destroy the temple and build it in three days,’

‘He trusts in God; let God deliver him now, if he desires him; for he
said, "I am the Son of God."’

Here the concept of some one divine in dire consequences mocked
by others to save himself has been copied and mutated from Psalm 22.

Psalm 22 :17

‘I can count all my bones--they stare and gloat over me;’

John 19 :32-36

‘So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first, and of the
other who

had been crucified with him;

but when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did
not break his legs.’ …

‘For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled,
"Not a

bone of him shall be broken."’

Jesus, who had come to symbolize the perfect sacrifice as the paschal
lamb, had to be physically perfect as an offering and could not have any
broken bones.

Psalm 22 :15

‘ my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaves
to my

jaws; thou dost lay me in the dust of death.’

John 19 :28

‘After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to
fulfil the

scripture), "I thirst."’

The theme of thirst is continued to parallel Psalm 22.

Psalm 22 :18

‘they divide my garments among them, and for my raiment they cast
lots.’

John 19 :23-24

‘When the soldiers had crucified Jesus they took his garments and
made

four parts, one for each soldier; also his tunic. But the tunic was
without

seam, woven from top to bottom;

so they said to one another, "Let us not tear it, but cast lots for
it to see

whose it shall be." This was to fulfil the scripture, "They parted my

garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots."’

The text of Psalm 22 is further developed with the division of
clothes and the casting of lots. The symmetries among the stories is now
complete

Virgin Birth

Psalms 2 :7

‘I will tell of the decree of the LORD: He said to me, "You are
my son,

today I have begotten you.’

Romans 1 :4

‘and designated Son of God in power according to the Spirit of
holiness

by his resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,’

The earliest of scriptural writings from Paul which designate Jesus
as God’s son, a title that had been used for the Kings of Israel

Isiaiah 7:14

Behold a young woman shall conceive and shall bring forth a son
and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

Matt 1:23

Behold a virgin shall conceive and shall bring forth a son and
you shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God is with us.

Midrashic use of Isaiah 7:14 by Matthew to signify Jesus’ virgin
birth. Matthew did not realize that he had copied from a Greek translation
that had improperly used "virgin" for "young woman".

Isaiah 42 :1

‘Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul

delights; I have put my Spirit upon him, he will bring forth justice
to the

nations.’

Mark 1 :11

‘and a voice came from heaven, "Thou art my beloved Son; with thee
I am

well pleased."’

The use of Midrash by Mark to signify the inauguration of Christ’s
as the "Son of God" to occur at his baptism

Psalm 110 :4

‘The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, "You are a priest
for

ever after the order of Melchiz'edek."’

Hebrew 7:1, 17

‘For this Melchiz'edek, king of Salem, priest of the Most High
God, met

Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him;’

‘The LORD has sworn and will not change his mind, "You are a priest
for

ever after the order of Melchiz'edek."’

Because Jesus was not part of the recognized priesthood, a Midrashic
attempt was made to link Jesus with another scriptural figure who was not
of the regular Jewish priesthood, Melchizedek.

Passion

Zechariah 9:9-11

‘Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of

Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you; triumphant and victorious is
he,

humble and riding on an ass, on a colt the foal of an ass.

Matt 21:7-9

And [the disciples] brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them
their clothes, and they set him theron….And the multitudes that went before,
and that followed, cried, saying Hosanna in the highest. And when he was
come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying Who is this? And the
multitude said, this is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.

Misdrashic interpretation of Zechariah’s account of the King entering
Jerusalmem. The story was muted to convey the entry of Jesus in the Holy
City.

Zechariah 14:21

‘and every pot in Jerusalem and Judah shall be sacred to the LORD
of hosts, so

that all who sacrifice may come and take of them and boil the flesh
of the

sacrifice in them. And there shall no longer be a trader in the house
of the

LORD of hosts on that day.’

Matt 21:12-13

And Jesus went into the temple of God, and cast out all them that
sold and bought in the temple, and overthrew the tables of the moneychangers,
and the seats of them that sold doves, and said unto them, It is written,
My house shall be called the house of prayer; but ye have made it a den
of thieves.

Another story from Zechariah that was modified to convey the idea
that Jesus had cast out the moneychangers and cleansed the temple.

Judas

Zechariah 11 :13

Then the LORD said to me, "Throw it to the potter, that magnificent
price at which I was valued by them" So I took the thirty shekels of silver
and threw them to the potter in the house of the Lord..

Matt. 27 :3-7

‘When Judas, his betrayer, saw that he was condemned, he repented
and

brought back the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and the
elders,

saying, "I have sinned in betraying innocent blood." … And throwing
down the pieces of silver in the temple, he departed; ..And they conferred
together and with the money bought the Potter’s Field as a burial place
for strangers.

Lifting of the story from Zechariah, with acknowledgement, of thirty
pieces of silver to be used for the burial plot for the poor.

Psalms 41:9

‘ Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread,
has lifted

his heel against me.’

John 13 :26

‘Jesus answered, "It is he to whom I shall give this morsel when
I have dipped it." So when he had dipped the morsel, he gave it to Judas,
the son of Simon Iscariot.’

The Midrashic use of the story from Psalm 41 of betrayal during
the act of eating.

2 Samuel 20: 9-10

"And Joab said to Amasa, Art thou in health, my brother? And Joab
took Amasa by the beard with the right hand to kiss him, But Amasa took
no heed to the sword that was in Joab’s hand; so he smote him therewith
in the fifth rib, and shed out his bowels to the ground,..and he died.

Mark 14 :44, 45

‘Now the betrayer had given them a sign, saying, "The one I shall
kiss is

the man; seize him and lead him away under guard."

And when he came, he went up to him at once, and said, "Master!" And
he… kissed him.’

The act of giving a kiss to signify an act of betrayal lifted from
2 Samuel is used to further flesh out the story of Judas.

In another remarkable theistic memetic mutation, Matthew wishes to anchor
the story of Jesus' divine birth in midrash. He chose a passage from a
Greek translation of Isaiah 7:14: "Behold a virgin shall conceive and shall
bring forth a son and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which means `God
is with us.'" Matthew did not realize or chose to ignore that the word
virgin
had been mistranslated from the original Hebrew text. Properly translated
the Isaiah verse reads, "Behold a young woman shall conceive and shall
bring forth a son and you shall call his name Emmanuel, which means `God
is with us.'" Thus, the virgin birth story, like the story of Joseph as
father, was the creation of a mutated theistic meme. Other examples of
extensive midrashic alteration of texts are found in the depiction of the
crucifixion, the story of Judas, and the Passion (Table
5).

In a study of the chronological relationships and textual criticisms
of early Christian religious texts, Ehrman (1993)
has revealed interrelationships and internal corruptions that demonstrate
a remarkable selection process leading toward a uniform and non-contradictory
religious canon. The confusion created with Jesus' virgin birth and the
question of the nature and timing of his divinity led to the development
of a number of mutant theistic memes. All Christians believed that Christ
was the Son of God. But what did this mean? New "Christians" wondered,
"Was he born God or did he become God at his baptism or did he become God
at his crucifixion and death?" Some early Christians believed that Christ
was born a man then was "adopted" by God at the time of his baptism and
became divine.

Anti-adoptionist theistic mutations by scribes wishing to embrace the
orthodox position focused on several key issues in Jesus' life and ministry.
The anti-adoptionists wished to support the belief of a divinely inspired
virgin birth and to minimize any suggestion that Jesus had a real father
(Table 6). In nearly every theistic meme originally
written to convey that Joseph was Jesus' father, the text was mutated to
enforce the emerging orthodox position that Christ was the Son of God and
born of a virgin.

Passage

Change from

Change to

Significance

Anti-Adoptionist

Luke 2:33, 48

Luke 2:43

Luke 2:48

"father and mother began to marvel"

"his parents"

"Look your father and I have been grieved, searching for you."

"Joseph and his mother began to marvel."

"Joseph and his mother"

" Your relatives and I have been grieved, searching ….."

Jesus the unique Son of God. Orthodox affirmation
of the Virgin Birth and that Joseph was in fact not Jesus' father.

Luke 3:22,/ Mark 1:11

"You are my Son, today I have begotten
you"

"You are my beloved Son, in you I
am well pleased."

Orthodox opposition to an adopted Jesus. Supports
the view that Jesus was the Son of God at birth.

Mark 1:1

." "The beginning of the Gospel
of Jesus Christ."

"The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ,
the
Son of God

Added corruption that supports the orthodox
view that Jesus was the Son of God at birth.

Anti-Separationist

Mark 1:11/Luke 3:22/Matthew 3:16

" the spirit as a dove descending
unto him"

"the spirit as a dove upon him"

Jesus, the Christ at His baptism. Divinity of
Jesus at his baptism.

Mark 15:34

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me?"

" My God, my God why have you reviled
me."

Jesus not left behind as the crucified Christ
is resurrected. Text harmonized with Psalm 22.

Hebrews 2:9

"that he apart from God should taste
death for every man"

"that he by the grace of God should taste
death for every man."

An orthodox corruption to obscure an interpretation
that Christ did not die on the cross

Anti-Docetic

Luke 22:19-20

"And taking bread, giving thanks, he broke it
and gave it to them saying, This is my body. But behold, the hand of the
one who betrays me is with me on the table"

"And taking bread, giving thanks, he broke it
and gave it to theme saying, This is my body that is given for you.
Do this in my remembrance. And likewise after supper, saying, this cup
is the new covenant in my blood that is poured out for you. But behold,
the hand of the one who betrays me is with me on the table"

Orthodox interpolation that Christ died for
atonement of sins and that real blood was shed for the sins of the world
to affirm the reality of his body at the time of the crucifixion.

Luke 22:43-44

Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this
cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And when he
rose up from prayer, and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping
for sorrow.

Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this
cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done. And there
appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him. And being in
an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops
of blood falling down to the ground. And when he rose up from prayer,
and was come to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow.

Orthodox interpolation that counters the docetic
belief that Christ could not suffer and was not a human of true flesh and
blood.

Luke 24: 111-12

"And their words seemed to them as idle tales,
and they believed them not"

"And their words seemed to them as idle tales,
and they believed them not. Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre;
and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and
departed, wondering in himself at the which was to come to pass."

Orthodox interpolation that Christ’s literal
body had been raised from the dead and this was recognized by the chief
disciple and was not a silly tale by hysterical women.

Marcion of Pontus (second century ce) was the son of an orthodox bishop
of the church of Sinope. After disagreements with his father about church
doctrine, he was forced to leave the church. He eventually became a wealthy
ship owner and once again tried to influence the church. This time he went
to Rome and, after making a large donation to the Church, attempted to
establish a dominant Christian canon. Marcion seized upon the writings
of Paul as a rejection of Jewish Law and scripture, and he proposed a canon
consisting of Pauline letters with Luke's gospel, purged of Hebrew scriptural
references. So complete was the rejection of the Jewish God that Marcion
believed Christ was not descended from the Old Testament creator god but
was sent by a "stranger" god. Since Christ was not of the Creator God,
he could not have been born and thus could not have been a flesh-and-blood
human being. Marcion's views thus expressed the basic tenets of Gnosticism.
When presented to a council of the Church of Rome, his work was squarely
rejected and his donation was returned; he was again excommunicated. Undaunted,
Marcion traveled through Asia Minor, where his message and canon were well
received. His movement was so successful throughout the Mediterranean region
that the Church was provoked to combat the perceived heresy. In reaction
to Marcion's teachings and "canon," the Church of Rome convened councils
to formulate an "orthodox" canon. The formulation of this canon again involved
a conscious "corruption" or mutation of theistic memes in accepted religious
texts: the Gospels (Mark, Matthew, Luke, John), Acts, and the Letters of
Paul. These mutations countered other interpretations, both anti-adoptionist
and Gnostic, from rival churches.

Gnostics believed that Jesus the man and Christ the divine were not
the same. Two basic arguments defined Gnosticism. The Docetics believed
Christ was always divine and only assumed the semblance of a man while
on earth. To counter the Docetics, orthodox scribes inserted passages in
the early canon that made Jesus appear as a man of real flesh and blood
(Table 6). The Separationists, the Gnostic
majority, believed the divine Christ descended from heaven to inhabit the
human being called Jesus at his baptism and gave the saving knowledge (gnosis)
during Jesus' ministry; being only a temporal inhabitant, the divine Christ
left Jesus' body at the crucifixion. To counter this perceived heresy,
orthodox scribes mutated text that suggested Jesus and Christ were separate
before his baptism or before his death on the cross (Table
6). These variants were selected and eventually would prevail, establishing
the orthodox view. Each variant interpretation had profound effects on
the final canon. The Christ embodied in orthodox canon was born divine
of a virgin birth; he was both God and a man during his ministry; and after
crucifixion his body was resurrected.

6 Theistic Memetic Mutation in Creation of the Islamic Canon

The basic Islamic theistic memes are present in the Qur'an, as given by
the Prophet Muhammad in a series of revelations by God over a period of
ten years (622-632 ce). Like Jesus, Muhammad was reinterpreting the Jewish
Torah and its laws (theistic memes) for his people. But unlike Christ,
Muhammad was not a Jew. Although Muhammad knew and respected the "People
of the Book," he formulated for the Arabs a monotheistic religion with
altered Jewish theistic memes. He claimed the god of the Jews for his religion
and Abraham as the first true believer. Any theistic memes attributed to
other prophets (including Moses and Christ) that Muhammad did not like
were deemed false and discarded. The revelations to Muhammad were eventually
transcribed as written theistic memes in the Qur'an - the indisputable
and authoritative source for all future followers.

The five structural theistic memes essential to the faith of Muslims
are (a) the shahada, a public profession of faith: "There is no
god but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of God"; (b) the salat,
the performance of a ritual prayer; (c) the zakat, obligatory alms;
(d) sawm, fasting during the month of Ramadan; and (e) the Hajj,
a pilgrimage to Mecca. These obligatory behaviors are the Pillars of Islam.
The Qur'an is the undisputed word of God, and all believers are referred
to this source for any questions about appropriate rituals and behaviors.
If the memes in the Qur'an are silent or ambiguous on a particular topic,
the memes in the hadiths, the sayings or reported sayings of Muhammad
(collected in the Sunna), are consulted. If the hadiths are
contradictory, the memetic laws of Islamic jurists (the ijma) are
used to produce uniform behavior. Examples of the Prophet's sayings in
the hadiths include

Every Muslim has six obligations toward his fellow Muslim:
he greets him whenever they meet; answers his call; wishes him well when
he sneezes; visits him when he is ill; follow in his funeral when he dies;
and wishes for him what he wishes for himself.

The strong man is not the one who knocks people down; the truly strong
man is the one who can control himself in anger.

God has no mercy for those who have no mercy for their fellow men.

These Islamic theistic memes, directly related to those of the Old Testament,
prescribe how individuals should treat each other. They are in effect Islam's
Golden Rules of behavior.

In contrast to what we know about the Old and New Testaments, our knowledge
about the canonization of the word of God according to Muhammad is remarkably
complete. God reportedly revealed his words directly to Muhammad. The verses
and phrases were recorded on separate pieces of bone and parchment and,
at Muhammad's death (610 ce), three successive caliphs gathered, compiled,
and authenticated the text. The Caliph Uthman (644-656 ce) proclaimed an
official version of the Qur'an, and all others were deemed false and ordered
destroyed. This contrasts with Hebrew and Christian authors spending centuries
composing and editing their theistic memes. For the Qur'an, no period was
allowed for harmonization of the text. Because only one edition was allowed,
tampering with the text was impossible. Thus the Qur'an was "orthodox"
from its beginnings; there is no evidence of processes to "corrupt" or
mutate the text. However, because the Qur'an was compiled from the unedited
recorded sayings of the Prophet and in a relatively short period by one
author, inconsistencies would be expected and indeed are present. The most
conspicuous inconsistency is the reference to other deities -in conflict
with the monotheism so prominently expounded upon later in the text. These
deities, al-Lat, al-'Uzza, and Manat, were goddesses present in contemporary
religious culture. Because no alteration of the text has been allowed,
this glaring inconsistency remains in the Qur'an, creating an unharmonized
set of theistic memes.

Perhaps those who constructed the Islamic canon, who must have witnessed
the difficulties encountered in formation of the Christian canon, ensured
that no such tampering could occur with the Qur'an.

7 Discussion

Religious ideas, concepts, and dictated behaviors, referred to here as
theistic memes, have a historical context in the written record beginning
about five thousand years ago. Memes have been proposed to vary and undergo
selection. The examples provided in this paper show that theistic memes,
studied chronologically, have been transmitted from generation to generation
(vertical transmission), have varied, and with time have been selected
and incorporated into a number of different religious texts. The proposed
underlying mechanism for the successful incorporation of a selected theistic
meme and its successful propagation in a religious canon is the ability
of that meme to enhance human fitness.

A study of the evolution of the Epic of Gilgamesh shows how fitness-enhancing
memes were progressively incorporated into the canon. In the Sumerian tales,
creative scribes infused mutant theistic memes into fanciful stories with
little message. The author(s) of the Epic took a story that primarily
focused on the hero-god himself and transformed the focus into a message
about death and the afterlife. They created the first-known recorded theistic
memes that directly affected reproductive success by promoting marriage
and family ("Pay heed to a little one that holds your hand. / Let a spouse
delight in your bosom") and reducing death anxiety (life should be lived
for the moment, not in obsessive thoughts of death and the afterlife).

If theistic memes randomly varied, some would, by chance, be fitness
minimizing; incorporated into a canon and taken as rules for behavior,
these could lead to extinction of a population. The American Shakers are
a most notable example of this phenomenon. This Christian sect adopted
the fitness-minimizing theistic meme of celibacy. The sect was otherwise
not unlike the Quakers of that era, who believed in religious equality
of the sexes, a pending apocalypse, and condemnation of established religious
hierarchies. Shakers migrated to America in the nineteenth century, and
one of these immigrants, Ann Lee, organized the sect into a group of interrelated
churches throughout New England. In response to attacks on the religion
by the press, the sect adopted a written code of uniform behavior, the
Millennial Laws (Shakers 1848), which formalized
beliefs and practices for its members and helped define the religion for
the general public. The distinctive behavior codified in these Laws was
celibacy and separation of the sexes. In Chapter II, the "Principles of
the Church of Christ, as revealed to practice in the United Society" list
the seven moral duties of the Believer: ". Duty to God 2. Duty to man 3.
Separation from the world 4. Practical peace 5. Simplicity of language
6. Right use of property 7. A virgin life." Paragraph 48 of the seventh
moral duty reads,

A virgin life, therefore, means a life of purity, a life
undefiled with sinful indulgences, unmixed practices, unadulterated with
carnal gratifications and impure desires and pursuits. But the sense to
which we immediately confine it, and indeed which is the most obvious,
is to express a life of continency, or a life of abstinence from carnal
gratifications of the flesh, from sexual coition, and from all lascivious
indulgences.

In paragraph 51, the Shakers use arguments from the past to justify the
virgin life; for example: "Josephus informs us that the Essenes, who maintained
the virtue of continence, were many of them favored by divine revelation."
Thus the Shaker restriction on marriage and sexual behavior may have had
its origins in a historical meme about the Essenes, a sect that also became
extinct. The practicalities of this theistic meme meant that to gain new
members the Shakers had to rely on adoptions and conversions. The number
of Shaker societies grew in the early eighteenth century, but by the time
of the Civil War the number of "Believers" began to decline. With fewer
members, inadequate management of Shaker assets and land ensued and contributed
to the economic decay of the church. Between 1880 and 1900 the Shaker population
declined by half. Burns and colleagues (1996)
report a newspaper account of 1905 that described the root of the Shaker
demise:

It was a case of love at first sight on both sides when
they met four years ago, but neither dared to speak to each other . . .
One day, as Audette was passing his lover's window, a thimble dropped to
the ground. Looking up he saw Miss Thayer in the window. He immediately
tore a piece of paper from a notebook, wrote a proposal of marriage, tucked
it in the thimble, and tossed it to his sweetheart. Last November Miss
T. forsook the Shaker religion and went to Winsted, Ct . . . where they
were married in April.

By the mid-twentieth century the membership had dwindled to forty. Soon
thereafter the last male member died. The Shakers, unable to sustain their
population, became extinct.

The search for the origins of Homo sapiens has led to two extremes
of beliefs. Either the human species had a divine origin or, like any other
species, it evolved from previous life forms. Although there are those
who believe strictly in one position or the other, many have adopted a
hybrid position in an attempt to reconcile scientific facts with a belief
in divine human creation. The most notable of the latter was Alfred Russell
Wallace, co-discoverer with Charles Darwin of the theory of evolution by
natural selection. Wallace believed that all species evolved according
to the Darwin-Wallace theory, except the human species. But as the accumulating
scientific evidence provided overwhelming validation of the theory, exclusion
of humans from a history of evolution by natural selection became untenable.
However, large communities still hold to religious beliefs denying human
evolution.

In the scientific community, the present-day debate has polarized into
those who categorically deny any divine existence or intervention in life's
evolutionary origins and those who believe in human evolution but allow
the coexistence and credibility of a formalized religious belief. According
to the former group, best represented by Richard Dawkins (1976),
all life forms and their respective behaviors have been made possible by
evolution through the natural selection of genes over the earth's four
billion year history. The latter group, best represented by Stephen Jay
Gould, acknowledges the fact of evolution but does not concede that religion
is irrelevant. Gould (1987) writes, "Unless at least
half my colleagues are inconsistent dunces, there can be -on the most raw
and direct empirical grounds -no conflict between science and religion.
I know hundreds of scientists who share a conviction about the fact of
evolution, and teach it in the same way. Among these people I note an entire
spectrum of religious attitudes."

Dennett (1996), in reflecting on this passage,
concludes that some evolutionary biologists have in effect drawn a cordon
sanitaire around the topic of religion and evolution. In this paper
I have proposed that religion is a part of human evolutionary history.

Another polarizing issue for evolutionary biologists is the question
of the extent to which genes influence human behavior. Dawkins (1976)
and Wilson (1989) presume that genes play a major
role; Gould (1977) and Dobzhansky (1963)
minimize genetic influence on human behavior. Dobzhansky (1963)
states,

The first, basic fundamental fact about human evolution
is that mankind is simultaneously engaged in two kinds of evolutionary
development -the biological and the cultural. Human evolution can be understood
only as a product of interaction of these two developments . . . Culture
is not inherited through genes, it is acquired by learning from other human
beings. In a sense, human genes have surrendered their primacy in human
evolution to an entirely new, non-biological or superorgancic agent, culture.
However, it should not be forgotten that this agent is entirely dependent
on the human genotype.

The classic argument used to define the debate between these two groups,
as proposed by Gould (1977), is the self-sacrificing
behavior of Eskimos. In some family groups of Eskimos, when food becomes
scarce, older family members willingly sacrifice themselves to enhance
the survivability of their children and grandchildren. The gene theorists
believe this altruistic trait is under direct genetic control. Families
with the gene for altruism, whose grandparents increased the survivability
of younger generations by sacrificing themselves in times of hardship,
have increased fitness. Those lacking the gene are less fit and will likely
perish.

That such a complex social strategy could be under genetic control -implying
that translation of DNA into a specific protein leads directly to a behavior
specific to a particular population -seems implausible. Although genetic
influence in certain human behaviors is incontrovertible (Steen
1996), genetic control of all social behaviors and strategies would
seem far beyond the functional capability of the genetic code. But if genes
do not directly control social behavioral strategies, what does?

Gould's answer, using the scenario of altruism among Eskimos, is that
the behavior is an adaptive, nongenetic cultural trait. Some families celebrate
sacrifice in song or story, venerating aged grandparents who sacrificed
themselves and thus maintaining the capacity for this fitness-enhancing
behavior through family generations. Families without such a tradition,
passed through stories or legends, could become extinct.

This proposed role of religion in human evolution is in agreement with
Benedict's (1989) assumption that the human species
has a range of genetically determined behaviors, evolved through natural
selection. Within this range of plastic social strategies and behaviors,
specific strategies and behaviors are executed not under genetic control
but under some sort of societal influence or religious mandate. Religious
laws are subject to selection and can evolve to provide the species with
greater fitness and reproductive success. The agent affecting fitness is
the meme, as conceived by Dawkins: a unit of cultural transmission, propagated
from generation to generation as the spoken or written word. Memes resemble
genes in that they carry information, can randomly vary, and are subject
to selection. Most importantly, they can affect human survivability and
fitness. The culturally transmitted songs or stories of which Gould speaks
in his explanation of self-sacrifice in Eskimos, and which Dobzhansky calls
"new, nonbiological or superorganic agent[s],"are in fact memes.

The model proposed in this paper takes the meme concept further: in
some populations, memes have been selected to produce a religious literature
that enhances the population's fitness by providing strict codes of conduct
and social strategies. The phenotypic expression of behavior is determined
first by a broad spectrum of possibilities provided by a genotype; but
the specific behavior executed is determined by a theistic meme incorporated
in a religious canon.

This model stipulates that religion evolved as a consequence of humans'
sophisticated self-awareness. The model recognizes the important contribution
of Maser and Gallup (1990) in describing
humans' self-awareness as a trait that enhances fitness but also creates
the epiphenomenon of an awareness of finiteness and eventual death. At
some point in human evolutionary history, self-awareness created a void
in humans' interpretation and understanding of their world. At that juncture,
the species needed answers to alleviate fears and anxieties arising from
awareness of the unknown and death. The god concept filled this void. With
the advent of writing some 6000 years ago, the specifics of god and the
relationship between humans and god began to take on a permanent, indelible
form. These written forms could have three different effects on the fitness
of the gene pool: positive, negative, or neutral (no effect). What has
been demonstrated here to support this model is that theistic literature
has been subject to selection. Fitness-enhancing theistic literature has
survived to become canon; fitness-minimizing theistic literature has not
survived selection and has become extinct.

The model described here is supported by the unique and remarkable fitness
provided by theistic memes in the Jewish canon for several millennia (Table
7). The Hebrew religious canon underwent profound evolutionary changes,
providing increasing fitness at four distinct periods in its history. In
the formative period, after the Exile (around 1300 bce), the Covenant code
and the Decalogue provided the Hebrews with a unique understanding of the
relationship with God: all men were equal under a covenant made with a
just God. The later Deuteronomic code affirmed this relationship, excluding
foreign religious influences and incorporating fitness-enhancing memes
about sexual behavior that promoted the nuclear family. Of profound importance
in limiting Hebrew fitness, however, was the practice of child sacrifice.
Addition to the canon of a strict prohibition of this practice (including
the story of Abraham and Isaac), with sacrifice transferred to animals,
markedly raised overall fitness. The Holiness code further affected reproductive
fitness by severely limiting behaviors such as prostitution, incest, adultery,
sodomy, and bestiality and encouraging fitness-enhancing behaviors that
perpetuated the nuclear family.

Most of the Torah is related to outlining a credible world order: the
nature of God, God's credibility, God's relationship to man, and the behaviors
necessary to obtain holiness. The great majority of the 613 commandments
in the Torah are devoted to these topics. However, in the long and tumultuous
history of the Hebrews, the Law had to be modified (mutated) to fit the
times. The remarkable stability of the Jewish canon that emerged from the
multitude of ancient Near Eastern populations is due to the incorporation
of fitness-maximizing theistic memes and the rejection of fitness-minimizing
memes. However, the Hebrew population, in its highly stable state of fitness,
was confined by laws against intermarriage. Other reproductive populations
with less stable fitness were, by self-awareness, at a disadvantage.

The Christian canon enabled gentiles and disaffected Jews to rise to
the same level of fitness as the Jewish population (Table
7). The Christian canon, accepted by many populations, was able to
overwhelm less stable fitness strategies throughout the Roman Empire. For
Arabic populations living with a polytheistic canon, Muhammad created an
Arabic Jewish monotheism, incorporating in the Qur'an essentially the same
fitness-maximizing theistic memes found in the Hebrew Torah. Through human
history, some populations have assumed mutant theistic memes that were
detrimental to fitness. The Shakers are a vivid example of a religious
population that incorporated the lethal theistic memetic mutation of celibacy.